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Organic chromium is of great interest and has become an important chromium supplement resource in recent years because of its low toxicity and easy absorption. In our previous study, we synthesized a novel organic chromium [GLP-Cr] through the chelation of Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide and chromium (III). The purpose of this study was to investigate the beneficial effects of GLP-Cr on the improvement of metabolic syndromes (MetS) in mice fed with a high-fat and high-fructose diet (HFHFD) and its mechanism of action. The results indicated that oral administration of GLP-Cr inhibited the excessive exaltation of body weight, glucose tolerance, fasting blood glucose and lipid levels, hepatic total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG) levels caused by HFHFD. Besides, 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing showed that GLP-Cr intervention evidently ameliorated intestinal microbiota dysbiosis by changing the proportions of some intestinal microbial phylotypes. In addition, correlation network-based analysis indicated that the key intestinal microbial phylotypes were closely related to biochemical parameters associated with MetS under GLP-Cr intervention. Liver metabolomics analysis suggested that GLP-Cr intervention significantly regulated the levels of some biomarkers involved in alpha-linolenic acid metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, steroid hormone biosynthesis, glycerophospholipid metabolism, glycerolipid metabolism, steroid hormone biosynthesis, primary bile acid biosynthesis, and so on. Moreover, GLP-Cr intervention regulated liver mRNA levels of key genes associated with glucose and lipid metabolism. The mRNA level of glucose transporter type 4 (Glut4) was markedly increased by GLP-Cr intervention, and the mRNA levels of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (Pepck) and glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) in the liver were significantly decreased. Meanwhile, GLP-Cr intervention significantly decreased hepatic mRNA levels of cluster of differentiation 36 (Cd36), acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1 (Acc1) and sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c (Srebp-1c), indicating that GLP-Cr intervention inhibited the excessive accumulation of free fatty acids in the liver. These findings suggest that the prevention of hyperglycemia and dyslipidemia by GLP-Cr may be closely related to the regulation of gut microbial composition and hepatic metabolic pathways, thus GLP-Cr can be serving as a functional component in the prevention of MetS.

We introduce SDM-NET, a deep generative neural network which produces structured deformable meshes. Specifically, the network is trained to generate a spatial arrangement of closed, deformable mesh parts, which respect the global part structure of a shape collection, e.g., chairs, airplanes, etc. Our key observation is that while the overall structure of a 3D shape can be complex, the shape can usually be decomposed into a set of parts, each homeomorphic to a box, and the finer-scale geometry of the part can be recovered by deforming the box. The architecture of SDM-NET is that of a two-level variational autoencoder (VAE). At the part level, a PartVAE learns a deformable model of part geometries. At the structural level, we train a Structured Parts VAE (SP-VAE), which jointly learns the part structure of a shape collection and the part geometries, ensuring a coherence between global shape structure and surface details. Through extensive experiments and comparisons with the state-of-the-art deep generative models of shapes, we demonstrate the superiority of SDM-NET in generating meshes with visual quality, flexible topology, and meaningful structures, which benefit shape interpolation and other subsequently modeling tasks., Comment: Conditionally Accepted to Siggraph Asia 2019

Large-area, uniform, and high quality continuous monolayer MoS2 was successfully grown on a SiO2/Si substrate, demonstrated using diverse analytical testing techniques. To achieve reproducible results, we discuss the influence of carrier gas flow on MoS2 growth in detail. Based on the results of the discussion, we present a possible deposition mechanism and growth process of continuous monolayer MoS2. Back-gated field effect transistors (FETs) based on an in situ, as-grown monolayer MoS2 film showed a carrier mobility of ∼9.8 cm2 V−1 s−1 and an Ion/Ioff of ∼3.1 × 106. These values offer insight into the potential applications of monolayer MoS2 in microelectronics and photoelectronics. Our results reveal that the controllable preparation of high quality continuous monolayer MoS2, or other ultrathin 2D materials, can be achieved via optimisation and adjustment of carrier gas flow.

3D shape editing is widely used in a range of applications such as movie production, computer games and computer aided design. It is also a popular research topic in computer graphics and computer vision. In past decades, researchers have developed a series of editing methods to make the editing process faster, more robust, and more reliable. Traditionally, the deformed shape is determined by the optimal transformation and weights for an energy formulation. With increasing availability of 3D shapes on the Internet, data-driven methods were proposed to improve the editing results. More recently as the deep neural networks became popular, many deep learning based editing methods have been developed in this field, which are naturally data-driven. We mainly survey recent research studies from the geometric viewpoint to those emerging neural deformation techniques and categorize them into organic shape editing methods and man-made model editing methods. Both traditional methods and recent neural network based methods are reviewed.

The rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to a large number of patients being admitted to hospitals, resulting in a near collapse of the medical system. The shortage of negative pressure isolation rooms and personal protective equipment is a potential problem. It is a pressing challenge to prevent the risk of infection in emergency physicians (EPs) during the endotracheal intubation of patients with COVID-19. We used a large clear plastic bag, cut an opening that covered the patient’s head, and created a negative pressure environment inside the plastic bag using the hospital’s medical gas pipeline system; thus reducing the amount of virus-containing aerosols leaked out and the risk of infection in the operators performing intubation. The video (http://www.caregiver.com.tw/Article.asp?ID=1258#article) about the detailed preparation of the plastic bag intubation kit (PBIK) has been posted on the website. This technique for safe endotracheal intubation in patients with COVID-19 is being used not only by EPs in Taiwan, but also by physicians and paramedics from other countries. Regarding designing the PBIK, our original intention was to use readily available materials to make tools that can improve the safety of the operators performing the intubations in situations where medical resources are exhausted. However, due to limited time and patients, further research is needed for validation.

Background Long non-coding RNA H19 was demonstrated to be significantly correlated with tumor metastasis. However, the specific functions of H19 in colorectal cancer (CRC) metastasis and the underlying mechanism are still largely unclear. Methods Use public database to screen the potential lncRNA crucial for metastasis in colorectal cancer. The expression of H19 in clinical CRC specimens was detected by qRT-PCR. The effect of H19 on the metastasis of CRC cells was investigated by transwell, wound healing assays, CCK-8 assays and animal studies. The potential proteins binding to H19 was identified by LC-MS and verified by RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP). The expression of indicated RNA and proteins were measured by qRT-PCR or western blot. Results We found the expression of lncRNA H19 was significantly upregulated in primary tumor and metastatic tissues, correlated with poor prognosis in CRC. Ectopic H19 expression promoted the metastasis of colorectal cancer cells in vitro and in vivo , and induced epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Mechanistically, H19 directly bound to hnRNPA2B1. Knockdown of hnRNPA2B1 attenuated the H19-induce migration and invasion in CRC cells. Furthermore, H19 stabilized and upregulated the expression of Raf-1 by facilitated the interaction between hnRNPA2B1 and Raf-1 mRNA, resulting in activation of Raf-ERK signaling. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate the role of H19/hnRNPA2B1/EMT axis in regulation CRC metastasis, suggested H19 could be a potential biomarker to predict prognosis as well as a therapeutic strategy for CRC.

Electrides are unique materials with the anionic electrons confined to the interstitial sites, expecting important applications in various areas. In this work, the electronic structure and detailed physical properties of topological electride Ca3Pb are studied theoretically. By comparing the crystal structures and band structures of Ca3Pb and Ca3PbO, we find that after removing O2– ions from Ca3PbO, the remaining electrons are confined in the vacancies of the Ca6 octahedra centers, playing the role as anions and forming an additional energy band compared with that of Ca3Pb. These interstitial electrons partially result in the low work function of Ca3Pb. Moreover, the calculated mechanic properties imply that Ca3Pb has a strong brittleness. In addition, the dielectric functions and optical properties of Ca3Pb are also analyzed.

Electrides are unique materials, whose anionic electrons are confined to interstitial voids, and they have broad potential applications in various areas. In contrast to the majority of inorganic electrides, in which the anionic electrons primarily consist of s-electrons of metals, electrides with anionic d-electrons are very rare. Based on first-principles electronic structure calculations, we predict that the layered transition metal chalcogenide Hf2Se is a novel electride candidate with anionic d-electrons. Our results indicate that the anionic electrons confined in the Hf6 octahedra vacancy between [Hf2Se] layers mainly come from the Hf-5d orbitals. In addition, the anionic electrons coexist with the Hf–Hf multiple-center metallic bonds located in the center of neighboring Hf4 tetrahedra. The calculated work function (3.33 eV) for the (110) surface of Hf2Se is slightly smaller than that of Hf2S, which has recently been reported to exhibit good electrocatalytic performance. Our study of Hf2Se will enrich the electride family, and promote further research into the physical properties and applications of electrides.

We study the influence of Cr doping on magnetic properties of α-RuCl 3 single crystals in detail. With increasing Cr content, the c-axial lattice parameter increases gradually, implying that the Cr doping may weaken the interlayer interactions. The magnetism of Ru 1 – x CrxCl 3 single crystals evolves from a long-range AFM order to a possible spin-glass state with Cr doping. The appearance of a possible spin-glass state can be explained by the introduction of FM interaction by Cr 3+ ions, which competes with the AFM interaction between Ru 3+ ions. Moreover, the larger magnetic moment of Cr 3+ ion with S = 3/2 than Ru 3+ ion with J eff = 1/2 also results in a monotonic increase of the effective moment of Ru 1 – x CrxCl 3 single crystal.

Hydrological regimes changed after the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) became fully operational, with the water level fluctuating between 145 m and 175 m. This has altered phosphorus (P) distribution within sediments and soils of the water-level-fluctuating zone (WLFZ). Eleven field investigations within the main stream were carried out in June 2016. The aim of the study was to determine lateral (sediment and WLFZ soil) and longitudinal variations (from the end of the backwater area to the Three Gorges Dam) of phosphorus species. P fractions were analyzed using a Standards, Measurements, and Testing (SMT) protocol. Results showed that both TP and NaOH-P content in sediment exhibited a clear increasing trend from the end of the backwater area to the Three Gorges Dam, while HCl-P declined. Average of totals P, OP (organic P), HCl-extracted P (HCl-P, calcium-bond P), and NaOH-extracted P (NaOH-P, metal oxide-bound P) in sediment were (859.6±106.8), (224.6±113.9), (435.3±77.7), and (101.5±31.6) mg·kg

3D model deformation has been an active research topic in geometric processing. Due to its efficiency, linear blend skinning (LBS) and its follow-up methods are widely used in practical applications as an efficient method for deforming vector images, geometric models and animated characters. LBS needs to determine the control handles and specify their influence weights, which requires expertise and is time-consuming. Further studies have proposed a method for efficiently calculating bounded biharmonic weights of given control handles which reduces user effort and produces smooth deformation results. The algorithm defines a high-order shape-aware smoothness function which tends to produce smooth deformation results, but fails to generate locally rigid deformations.\ud \ud To address this, we propose a novel data-driven approach to producing improved weights for handles that makes full use of available 3D model data by optimizing an energy consisting of data-driven, rigidity and sparsity terms, while maintaining its advantage of allowing handles of various forms. We further devise an efficient iterative optimization scheme. Through contrast experiments, it clearly shows that linear blend skinning based on our optimized weights better reflects the deformation characteristics of the model, leading to more accurate deformation results, outperforming existing methods. The method also retains real-time performance even with a large number of deformation examples. Our ablation experiments also show that each energy term is essential.

In this paper, Al-doped ZnO thin films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering and subsequently rapid thermal processing was executed under temperature range from 300°C to 600°C in order to investigate the microstructure, electrical, and optical properties of AZO films. XRD and AFM microscopy results showed that all the samples were of poly-crystalline and the grain size became larger with the increasing processing temperature. Compared with the sample as-deposited, it was shown that resistivity decreased from 1.9×10-2 to 1.48×10-3Ωcm and carrier concentration increased from 1.48×1020 to 5.59×1020 cm3 when the sample was processed at 600°C in pure nitrogen for 1 min. The highest transmittance of the samples processed at 500°C improves to 90.35% compared with the as-deposited films (68.2% ) as the wavelength varied between 400 and 900 nm.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are important components of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which play significant roles in innate immunity to defense against pathogen invasion. Many TLRs have been found in teleosts, but there are no reports about cloning and expression of TLR genes in yellow catfish (Pelteobagrus fulvidraco). In this study, we analyzed the sequence characters and the relative mRNA expression levels of nine TLRs (TLR1, TLR2, TLR3, TLR4-1, TLR5, TLR7, TLR8-2, TLR9 and TLR22) in different tissues of yellow catfish. The results showed that all nine TLR genes are highly expressed in head kidney, trunk kidney, spleen and liver, all of which are related to host immunity. Subsequently we used Aeromonas hydrophila as a stimulating agent to detect the expression profiles of these nine TLRs in the liver, spleen, trunk kidney and head kidney of yellow catfish at different time points after injection with killed Aeromonas hydrophila. All nine TLRs responded to A. hydrophila challenge with tissue-specific patterns in different immune tissues. The kinetics of up- or down-regulation of these nine TLRs exhibited a similar trend, rising to an elevated level at first and then falling to the basal level, but the peak value differed at different time points in different tissues. The expression levels of the TLR3, TLR4-1, TLR9 and TLR22 genes were significantly up-regulated after bacterial challenge in the liver, spleen, head kidney and trunk kidney. The relatively high expression of TLR genes in the immune tissues in response to the A. hydrophila challenge indicated that TLRs may play important roles in the innate immune response against gram-negative bacteria in yellow catfish.

Background: Cordyceps sinensis (C. sinensis), a traditional Chinese medicine, exhibits various pharmacological activities such as reparative, antioxidant, and apoptosis inhibitory effects. Intestinal barrier dysfunction plays a vital role in the progression of sepsis. We aimed to explore the effect of C. sinensis on the gut barrier and evaluate its efficacy in sepsis. Methods: A murine model of gut barrier dysfunction was created by intraperitoneal injection of endotoxin. C. sinensis or saline was administered orally after the induction of sepsis. Alterations of intestinal barrier were evaluated and compared in terms of epithelial cell apoptosis, proliferation index (PI), intercellular tight junction (TJ) and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). Results: C. sinensis significantly decreased the percentage of apoptotic cells and promoted mucosal cells proliferation indicated by enhanced PI and PCNA expression in the intestinal mucosa compared to control group. The TJs between epithelial cells which were disrupted in septic rats were also restored by treatment of C. sinensis. In survival studies, C. sinensis was demonstrated to confer a protection against the lethal effect of sepsis. Conclusion: These results suggest that C. sinensis has gut barrier-protection effect in endotoxin-induced sepsis by promoting the proliferation and inhibiting the apoptosis of intestinal mucosal cells, as well as restoring the TJs of intestinal mucosa. C. sinensis may have the potential to be a useful adjunct therapy for sepsis.

East Dongting Lake is one of the national nature reserves in China, and an important habitat for the wintering of waterfowls in China, and even, global wetlands. To study the relationships between waterfowl community and environmental factors is of vital significance in providing useful data and necessary information for the restoration of bird habitat. In the winters of 2010 and 2011, a survey was conducted on the wintering waterfowls in East Dongting Lake wetland, and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was adopted to reveal the relationships between the distribution of dominant wintering waterfowl species and environmental factors. The partial CCA was also employed to assess the respective importance of environmental factors on the waterfowl species distribution and diversity. The factors including the distance to roads, distance to residents, patch density, number of vegetation types, water area, and sedge area had significant effects on the waterfowl distribution (P0.05), with the affecting intensity in the order of sedge areapatch densitydistance to residentsnumber of vegetation typeswater areadistance to road. Sedge area and patch density had highly significant effects (P0.01) on the distribution of the waterfowls, being the two major factors affecting the wintering waterfowls in the wetland, while landscape diversity index and reed area had no significant effects (P0.05). The regression analysis showed that environmental factors had different effects on the species richness. The richness of Platalea leucorodia, Anas falcata, and Calidris alpina decreased with the increase of sedge area, while increased with the increase of patch density. However, the richness of Anserfabalis, Anser albifrons, Anser erythro- pus, and Anas crecca increased with increase of sedge area while decreased with the increase of patch density. It was suggested that the distribution of wintering waterfowls in East Dongting Lake wetland was affected by a variety of environmental factors, among which, sedge area and patch density played the most important roles.

To investigate the feasibility and technology for purifying Ganodermna lucidum polysaccharide (GLP) by ultrafiltration.A spire roll ultrafiltration unit was selected to purify GLP.Purity of 73.5% and recovery ratio of 69.4% for GLP were obtained by using a membrane with cut-off molecular mass of 6000, while operating temperature, pressure and time were 45-50 degrees C, 0.6 MPa and 45 min, respectively.Ultrafiltration is one of the new feasible methods for the purification of GLP.

To isolate and purify Chlorogenic acid from Eucommia ulmoides leaves by ultrafiltration technique.Chlorogenic acid transferring ratio was investigated by temperature, pressure, time, cut-off molecular mass.The optimal conditions for the ultrafiltration technique were finally determined. It was found that, for the membrane with a cut-off molecular mass of 20000, when the temperature, pressure, time were respectively 40 degrees C, 0.36 MPa, 20 minutes and adding 24L water, yield of Chlorogenic acid was 99.38%.High Chlorogenic acid transfering ratio can be gotten by ultrafiltration technique, which is helpful to the further isolation and purification of Chlorogenic acid in the subsequent process.

3D shape analysis is an important research topic in computer vision and graphics. While existing methods have generalized image-based deep learning to meshes using graph-based convolutions, the lack of an effective pooling operation restricts the learning capability of their networks. In this paper, we propose a novel pooling operation for mesh datasets with the same connectivity but different geometry,by building a mesh hierarchy using mesh simplification. For this purpose, we develop a modified mesh simplification method to avoid generating highly irregularly sized triangles. Our pooling operation effectively encodes the correspondence between coarser and finer meshes in the hierarchy. We then present a variational auto-encoder (VAE) structure with the edge contraction pooling and graphbased convolutions, to explore probability latent spaces of 3D surfaces and perform 3D shape generation. Our network requires far fewer parameters than the original mesh VAE and thus can handle denser models thanks to our new pooling operation and convolutional kernels. Our evaluation also shows that our method has better generalization ability and is more reliable in various applications, including shape generation and shape interpolation.